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Life Span Development Essay

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Life Span Development and Personality Paper
Rebecca Barney
PSY/300
July 26, 2010
Dr. Theresa Watts

LIFE SPAN DEVELOPMENT AND PERSONALITY PAPER
The famous person I choose to write about from the 20th or 21st Century is Princess Diana. I have conducted a large amount of research on Princess Diana and have found what forces have influenced her life from the viewpoint of developmental psychology.
Influences of Heredity and Environment
Princess Diana was born on July 1, 1961 to parents Edward John Spencer, Viscount Althorp, and Frances Ruth Burke Roche, Viscountess Althorp (later known as the Honorable Frances Shand Kydd). Her parents ended up divorcing each other when Princess Diana was a young child and her father won custody of …show more content…

(1996).
Theories of Personality
B. F. Skinner thought of personality in terms of the effects external stimuli have on behavior. This emphasized the mutual interaction of the person or "the organism" with its environment. An example of this is something a baby learns. If a baby cries and receives attention, it teaches the baby that in order to get attention they need to cry. Princess Diana learned that external stimuli have a huge effect on her behavior.
Cognitive theories are theories of personality that emphasize cognitive processes such as thinking and judging. Princess Diana knew that everything she said or did would be judged. This helped to shape her in the direction she went.
Theoretical Approach
I believe that Carl Roger’s approach best explains Princess Diana’s behaviors and achievements. According to About.com: Psychology, Carl Rogers, a humanist psychologist, believed that all people have an actualizing tendency-a drive to fulfill individual potential that motivates behavior. Rogers called healthy individuals "fully-functioning,” describing these individuals as those who are open to experience, live in the moment, trust their own judgment, feel free, and are creative.
Princess Diana was always trying new things and helping those in need. She trusted her own judgment on many things. After her divorce from Prince Charles, she had to reinvent her life

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